


safer in your arms

by ofsinnersandsaints



Series: Kastle Smut Week 2019 [2]
Category: The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Kastle Smut Week, Oral, bed sharing, kastle - Freeform, ksw: tantalizing tuesday
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-13
Packaged: 2020-08-20 15:07:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20229862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ofsinnersandsaints/pseuds/ofsinnersandsaints
Summary: Karen's apartment is getting painted, and since she was given absolutely no notice, she needs a place to stay for the night- which is how Frank ends up waking from a nightmare in the middle of the night with Karen in his bed and going on instinct he reaches for her.





	safer in your arms

Frank was staring at a can of soup, trying to come up with the interest to make it when he heard the knock at his door. Exactly five people knew where he lived and four of those people he wouldn’t mind dropping by on a quiet Tuesday night.

The fifth he was just as likely to hit as offer him a beer.

Moving to the door he checked the peephole and quickly opened it. “Karen? Everything okay?”

Her smile was a little wry. “Yeah, everything’s good. Weirdly, I haven’t come to you because of a deadly government conspiracy and no one has shot at me recently.”

Frank braced a hand on the open doorway. “It’s still early in the week. Want to come in?”

“That’s exactly what I’m here for.” Frank furrowed his brow but opened the door wider to let her inside. His place was sparse but it wasn’t the first time she’d been by, so she knew what to expect. “I need a place to stay.”

He shut the door, and watched her drop her bag on the only armchair in the room before turning to face him. “My place is being painted.”

“They didn’t give you any kind of heads up?”

“No,” she smiled and dropped onto his couch and he realized she was basically dressed for an evening in, leggings and a loose tank top. She looked warm and soft and a little too welcoming for his sanity. “Apparently when your tenant is an investigative journalist you don’t give them a heads up about possible lead paint and risk them writing an expose on you.”

Frank laughed and settled next to her on the couch. “And that leaves you without a place to stay tonight.”

“I tried hotels before barging in on you,” she promised. “But the only places with any kind of availability are more than I can afford.”

“I don’t mind the company.” She looked genuinely shocked which almost made him laugh again. “Despite my reputation as a lone gunmen, I’ve spent most of my adult life surrounded people.”

She curled up on his couch like she belonged there, her arm on the back of it so she could rest her temple against her hand. “I never thought about it like that.”

“I was an only kid growing up, but I had a pack of friends and we were always in each other’s space and then the army. Shit, there wasn’t a day that went by I had more than ten minutes to myself.”

“And then you got married,” she added with a small smile.

Frank returned it because he knew how careful she was about bringing up his ghosts, but he was getting better about it. “Then I got married, so even when I wasn’t deployed with a hundred other guys bunked in a single tent I had her, and our first apartment was about as shitty as this one is. We were constantly bumping into each other.”

“Did you fight a lot?”

“We drove each other crazy those first few months,” he admitted. “But we figured it out. We made good.”

“And now you’re back in a shitty apartment,” she teased and he smiled at her, shaking his head because he didn’t have a defense against that. “Have you had dinner yet?”

“I think I’ve got a can of chicken soup.”

“That’s just sad, Frank.” She moved to her knees and braced herself on his shoulder so she could reach her bag on the chair. “I’m ordering pizza, my treat since you’re letting me crash on the couch.”

“You’re not sleeping on the couch, Karen. You can take the bed.”

“Chivalry’s not dead,” she smirked, putting the phone to her ear. She ordered a pizza, loaded with everything but onions and anchovies, and then tossed her phone on the coffee table. “But seriously, I’m not taking your bed. You’re eleven feet tall, you wouldn’t get a minute of sleep.”

“I’ve slept in worst places.”

“Just because you have, doesn’t mean you should,” she argued, then tilted her head. “Can you share?”

“On occasion.”

“I sleep on the left side, that’s not up for negotiation.”

He felt like someone had tasered him, he was suddenly frozen and stupid. “You want to share the bed?”

“Sounds like the easiest solution,” she shrugged and got off the couch to take the three steps required to be in the kitchen. “Do you have anything to drink?”

“By all means,” he gestured towards the fridge. “Make yourself at home.”

“Thanks, I will. Do you want a beer?”

“You’re offering me one of my own beers?” he clarified. “Sure, why not?”

She grabbed two bottles and returned to the couch, legs crossed as she faced him. “I’m glad you were home, I would have hated to break into the Punisher’s apartment.”

“This isn’t the Punisher’s home,” he reminded her. The intercom downstairs was for Pete Castiglione, a construction worker who was gone for long stretches at a time. It was an easy cover, and on occasion he actually did work legit jobs.

The last job he’d worked on, one of his coworkers had suggested a blind date but Frank had turned it down, not in small part because of the woman sitting next to him.

“And still, it’s the safest place in New York.”

That warmed him, that she figured him as somewhere safe, especially considering how much danger he’d put her in over the years. “That’s mostly because there’s nothing here worth stealing.”

“That’s not true,” she argued. “I brought my laptop so there’s that.”

“Do you need to work?”

“If you weren’t home I was going to sleep at the paper,” she explained with a shrug. “There’s a couch where I can get a few minutes of shut eye.”

He caught the evasion, barely there, but something he noticed it because of how her eyes avoided his. Frank remembered the diner, when she’d confessed that she’d gone with him because he’d never lied to her. He liked to believe that she’d never lied to him either.

Reaching over he picked up her bag and pulled out her computer so he could hand it to her. “Here.”

She looked guilty but reluctantly took it. “You don’t mind?”

“Nah, go for it. I get that you’ve got shit to do.”

“Thanks.” Karen opened the laptop and set in on the coffee table, shifting so she could lean forward and log in. “Do you want to know what it’s about?”

“Sure, since there’s a fifty/fifty chance I’ll have to save you from something regarding it might be good for me to be in the know.”

She spent the next half hour describing her investigation and he happily joined her in the conversation, mostly listening, but butting in now and again with questions of his own and the only time the conversation stopped was when the food came and they switched to the television as they shared slices of pizza.

“I’m going to crash,” she announced sometime around midnight. “Don’t feel like you have to go bed just because I am.”

“Okay,” he said as she got up and headed to the bedroom which was just on the other side of an open archway. He waited another fifteen minutes for the movie to end before following, stepping into the bathroom to ditch his street clothes for shorts and a t-shirt.

When he climbed into bed Karen was already breathing softly on the other side.

It had been a long time since he’d gone to bed with someone else, even longer since he’d fallen asleep next to someone and it was a strange feeling.

Not unwelcome, just different.

Turning on to his stomach he closed his eyes and with the warmth of Karen beside him, quickly fell to sleep.

He woke with a start, the room dark except for a flash of pale skin as cool hands touched his face in slow, soothing motions. “I’m here, Frank. I’m here.”

Karen, he realized, blindly reaching for her in the heavily shadowed darkness.

“Yeah, it’s me.”

Shit, he must have said her name out loud.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her voice quiet but concerned, and close enough he could feel her breath on his cheek. “I think you were having a nightmare, you wouldn’t wake up.”

“Nightmare,” he managed to get out, but even to himself it sounded more like a question. He couldn’t remember what he’d been dreaming out. Frank’s hand found her shoulder and he ran his palms down her arm. “Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“I’m fine,” she promised and her fingers ran up and down the back of his neck as if trying to soothe something untamed and scared. “Do you need anything?”

Frank thought of the adrenaline still coursing through his veins from some unknown terror, of the erratic beat of his heart which was slowing with every caress of Karen’s touch.

“You,” he heard himself saying as his hands moved to her hips and clenched tightly, the jersey fabric wrinkling in his hands. “I need you.”

“You have me,” she promised, but he didn’t think she understood.

Frank ran his hands over her body, the pads of his fingers pressing into her spine. “I need you, Karen.”

She stilled in his hands and he expected her to pull away, or evade the suggestion, but after the span of a few heartbeats he could feel her lean forward, and in the dark her mouth found his.

He knew he shouldn’t think of her as salvation, that wasn’t healthy for either of them, but after the turmoil of whatever demons had been chasing him in his sleep she was like a drink of cool water, of moonlight pushing through the storm clouds.

Frank sipped on her lips, pushing the hem of her shirt up until she reached down and took it off. She wrapped her arms around his neck, moved to straddle him in the dark as his hand slid up to cover her breast.

The panic in his veins turned into something else as they kissed; Karen was slow and deliberate as if she could calm him down by touch and gesture alone, so even while he wanted to take and ravage she soothed and comforted.

It had been too long since he’d had someone to hold onto in the middle of the night.

She ran her hands down his back and pressed herself closer, the center of her pressing against his growing erection.

He wished he could see her better, but there was something intimate about touching and tasting her without being able to see her because he knew what she looked liked. He ran his hand through her hair, his thumb brushing the skin above her temple where he knew she had a small scar from the hotel.

Frank pressed his lips to the beauty marks on her neck, one on each side.

When had he memorized her so completely?

He pressed his hands to her lower back, holding her steady, so he could shift on the bed and lay Karen on her back. “I shouldn’t need you like I do,” he murmured against her skin as he kissed down her sternum, over the bit of lace that wasn’t quite a bra, and down her stomach. “But goddamn, I can’t stop myself.”

“You have me,” she promised, her fingers threading through his hair. “I’m here.”

With a tug he pulled down her leggings and underwear, leaving them on the floor as he kissed his way back up her legs, along the inside of her thighs. She stiffened beneath him which gave him pause. “I can stop.”

“No,” she whispered, he could feel as well as hear the shift of her body on the sheets. “I’m just pretty sure I’m dreaming.”

Frank kept his touch soft on her legs as he traced the length of her legs. “Is this what I do to you in your dreams, Karen?”

“Yes,” she breathed out. “But usually I can see you.”

“Next time,” he promised without even thinking about the words. If they kept the lights off, the world stayed somewhere else.

The darkness had always been theirs.

He used his tongue to spread those lips he hadn’t yet kissed, to find the hard bud already damp with arousal. With his lips and teeth, along with his tongue, he tasted and teased her in an ever quickening rhythm, taking her comfort and mixing it with his desperation.

Karen’s thighs tightened against his temples and he had to reach up to grasp her legs and hold her down and away. As much he wouldn’t mind dying in the heat of her, he wanted to hear her come first.

“Frank,” she whimpered, her body starting to clench beneath him. “Frank, I’m so close.”

“What do you need?”

“More.”

He shifted onto his hands, towering above her even though he could barely make her out in the shadows. Frank spit into his right hand and wrapped it around his erection, pumping himself a few times before guiding the head of his cock into her.

It was a slow slide as she shifted beneath him in an effort take more of him inside her.

Frank gripped the sheets on either side of Karen’s head, trying to control himself because he’d love nothing more than to take her quick and hard, a purging of sorts, but he wanted better for them both.

He dropped to one of his elbows, the other hand moved the bralette aside and cupped her breast and brought it to his mouth so he could lave her with his tongue, hollowing out his cheeks as he sucked on her. All the while he was moving against her, with her, a slow in and out of slick friction.

Karen reached between them as he pleasured himself on her skin, he could feel her hand brushing against his erection whenever he pulled out and Frank shifted on the bed so he could watch the pale hand between them. Her fingers were busy on her clit, trying to get to the place they were both reaching for.

“What do you need?”

“Faster,” she answered as she put her free hand on the breast he’d been paying so much attention to, and Frank was entranced at the image of Karen taking what she wanted.

Frank obeyed the direction and braced himself on his elbows, picking up speed as he drove into her, realizing belatedly that he hadn’t put on a condom.

He realized he’d have to pull out, and he didn’t relish the idea of leaving the tight, wet heat of Karen’s cunt, and he wasn’t going to last much longer. But he couldn’t come before Karen, so he put one arm around her back and lifted her hips off the bed, changing the angle of his slid into her.

The strangled sound which came out of her mouth told him everything he needed to know, and even if it didn’t, Karen was more than happy to tell him. “God, yes. Right there, Frank. Right there.”

So he fucked her, the rapid speed echoed in the room with the sound of their flesh meeting.

“Yes,” Karen started saying, repeating the word as she reached out to hold onto his arm like an anchor. “Shit, Frank.”

And then she shattered beneath him, and Frank had half a second to pull out before coming himself, spending all over the sheets.

“Christ,” unable to hold himself up anymore he rested his weight on Karen. “I’m going to move in a minute.”

She chuckled beneath him, her hands running up and down his back. “You have thirty seconds before I won’t be able to breathe anymore.”

“Copy that,” Frank muttered, and then rolled off of her. “Fuck, what a way to wake up.”

“You scared the shit out of me,” Karen told him as rolled over so she could look at him. “I couldn’t wake you up.”

“Sorry,” he apologized. “It’s been a while since I’ve needed to worry about someone in bed with me when I have a nightmare. I’m going to get some clean sheets, feel free to use the shower if you need to clean up.”

“Thanks for that,” she said, her hand finding his. “You didn’t have to pull out.”

He shrugged because it seemed like basic decency to him. “I figured you were probably on something, but it felt rude to assume.”

“I am, on something I mean.” Karen sat up on the bed and now he wished for some light so he could see her a little better. “Was this a one-time thing, Frank? Take the comfort offered?”

Frank put his fingers around her arm and drew her forward so he could kiss her, tried to keep it soft and warm even though he was rarely either of those things. He’d try to be that, and so much more for her. “You have never been a one-time thing for me, Karen. And thank you.”

She didn’t pretend not to know what he was talking about, “I’m glad I could be here for you. I hate the idea of you having to go through this alone.”

“It doesn’t happen as often as it used to,” Frank admitted. “But I’m glad you were here, too.”

Karen framed his face and kissed him. “I’m going to use the bathroom.”

Frank nodded and while she used the restroom he pulled off the now dirty sheets, thought about the fact if Karen was going to be there on the regular he should invest in something better. “I’m impressed you have spare sheets,” Karen said from the doorway.

She was still naked except for the bralette, and now that the lights were on he could see every bit of perfection.

“Goddamn, you’re beautiful.”

Her blush nearly covered her entire body even as she bent down to pick up her clothes and started redressing. “Thank you.”

“You’re not leaving are you?”

She laughed and finished pulling on her leggings, balling up her underwear and putting in her overnight bag. “No, I’ve just had enough bad shit happen to me I don’t like going to bed in clothes I can’t be interviewed by the police in. I don’t want to be jumped naked and unarmed.”

“Smart.” He’d pulled on his shorts and climbed into bed, Karen slipping under the sheets. “What time do have to be at work tomorrow?”

“I kind of come and go as I please, I don’t have a set schedule to be at the office. Why?”

Frank debated with himself before reaching over and pulling Karen against him, and he could feel her smile on his bare shoulder. “I was thinking we could get breakfast. I know this really great diner that recently remodeled after being shot up.”

Karen laughed, a bright, happy sound. “Maybe not there. The poor waitress would probably quit on sight.”

“Fair point. We’ll figure something out.”

She snuggled against him, her arm draped across his stomach. “We always do.”


End file.
